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There are are at least two Ukraines, one in the west that is orientated towards Poland and wants to be closer to Europe. And one in the East that is orientated towards Russia. Kiev is right in the middle.

Protests began after Ukrainian president decided to favor a trade agreement with Russia rather than Europe. This led to those who wanted to be closer to Europe to start a protest, there have also been rallies supporting the Ukrainian president.

Why such a big deal over a trade deal? well for America and its puppets in western Europe it is a question of geopolitics. Since the end of the Cold War the NATO encirclement of Russia has tightened. If the president of Ukraine signs the European trade agreement, there is a clear cause in it that allows NATO access. This is all geopolitics and business.

To date I would say the protests have been tolerated to the point where now extremist, revolutionary forces, have sabotaged any negotiation process. The moderate leaders within the protest movements have lost control. Power sharing solutions presented by the Ukrainian president have been rejected. Police and protestors are dying, both sides are armed. Parliament of Ukraine has just tried to pass a counter terrorism protocol against the protestors, the Ukrainian president has stopped it. In addition, the agreed upon truce was not upheld by rogue elements of the protestors who refused to unoccupy some government buildings.

I would like to state that the Ukrainian president has walked a very thin line against forces that want a divided and revolutionary Ukraine. I would say he has shown extreme restraint and real desire to negotiate.

Predictably, America has solely put the blame on the Ukrainian president and European Union has issued sanctions against Ukraine. EU and US have issued rhetoric similar to Libya and Syria, along the lines of if you attack your protestors we will respond severely.

I would watch RT news as this unfolds.

This is about business, this is about reinforcing the western capitalist system by getting as many countries to side with their trade agreements. As this Ukrainian situation is happening, there is little news about the trans-pacific-partnership, that is a bigger, badder NAFTA with Asia. If your looking to protest something here in Canada I suggest you do it before its too late. In addition, to TTP, there is also a trade agreement to combine North America with Europe.

Us in the west on the international level are the bad guys. We do things in the name of freedom, rights, justice, even prosperity, but the imperial motives are clear. Clear from the consequences of what the west has done for decades.

Lets be realistic. This capitalism is an unstoppable force right now. The people have their weed and their pro football. All outside information is provided to us by massive billionaire corporations. We are animals, and animals respond to immediate stimuli. The people are unorganized. We have little unions, and what little unions we have are not cooperating with other civil society actors. We have been divided long ago and conquered. There have literally been Great Gatsby like partys of the 1% laughing at the poor manipulated people who bailed out the rich in 2008. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-26264745

I don't know about you guys, but if someone robs me and then laughs I get pissed and do something about it. If I were to say I would line up the rich wall-streeters and shoot them in-front of the world I would be called a commy terrorist. oh how I sympathize with communists now long dead. I get why you killed.

Looks like someone bribed the people to go on the street and caused too much beef for nothing. Broke EU got nothing to offer at the moment.. On the other hand, Russia will just jack up the cost of gas, and the reality will result in Ukraine running back to Russia.

it is very sad that this is your perception of the unfolding events in ukraine. RT is not a credible news source, and these protests have moved way beyond a conflict regarding rapproachment to russia vs the eu.

just FYI the parliment severly limited the presidents power today (after yanukovich sidestepped parlimentary procedure to give himself extraconstitutional powers), most western powers have explicitly condomned yanukovich's actions, canada has closed its embassy in kiev.

"I would like to state that the Ukrainian president has walked a very thin line against forces that want a divided and revolutionary Ukraine. I would say he has shown extreme restraint and real desire to negotiate." is an obscene and ridiculous statement which i take personal offense to. it is very clear that you lack a fundamental understanding of politics in the region, and i suggest you do more research before you go posting nonsense on the internet.

here is a list of confirmed deaths on both sides from today alone. explain to me how all these 50/60 something's are "extremist radicals who are instigating violence." ukraine is the second largest country in europe, believe me they can disarm a 62 year old woman without killing her. (all reports of revolutionaries with weapons are those recovered from riot police).

Ivan, russia cannot turn off the gas to ukraine. the piplines that deliver russian gas to western europe all go through ukraine.

__________________
I run a canadian led kit & hid kit company, if you have any questions about led headlights or hid kits in canada or would like to check out our products please contact me here: http://absolutehid.ca2002 TiAg M3 6mt deoranged, dechromed, led tails, ZHP knob, UUC SS v3, GROM, OEM 220M 19's, Michelin Supersports
2006 YZF-R6, bunch of go-fast stuff

__________________
I run a canadian led kit & hid kit company, if you have any questions about led headlights or hid kits in canada or would like to check out our products please contact me here: http://absolutehid.ca2002 TiAg M3 6mt deoranged, dechromed, led tails, ZHP knob, UUC SS v3, GROM, OEM 220M 19's, Michelin Supersports
2006 YZF-R6, bunch of go-fast stuff

Extreme restraint, as I see it is in the form of not using the military to crack down on what has evolved into a riot with extremist elements. Think of it like this, opposition leaders agreed a truce with the president which included to stop occupying government buildings. But then some groups within the protest/riot refuse to honor that. What now? Do the protestors themselves go and clear out other protestors? Wheres the organized authority? Opposition has lost control of at least some part of the protest. I mean if a group of people took over eatens center with guns and built barricades what does that look like.

What now? more clashes, more molotovs at police and more police brutality in a conflict that has lasted months. Police here in Canada and America, hardly can act morally decent in a peaceful protest. Now are you surprised police in Ukraines long conflict in bitter winter can act any better? Police are people, average people.

And why does it matter what Canada does? or Europe? or America? they are all the same, they are the west and we have seen what the west has done. You think the Russians were the bad guys during the Cold War and beyond? everything bad they did we did 10x worse. Is this surprising to you?

The cold war was fought over ideology, between free market private property systems of production vs state control, for the sake of brevity. This conflict is still going on everywhere. Whether in America calling for more regulation or in Russia with nationalizing key industries such as oil. Now when shit hits the fan like it did in 2008 and in many times before, we see exactly who gets left behind and who gets bailed out. Here in the west when our economy is bad we have turned to austerity, instead of the 30s new deal which worked before (socialism)

class conflict is the truth. we here in the west have been dominated by the 1%. we as average working joes do not have the same interests of the elite and rich. We may be happy they gives us jobs servicing and supporting corporations who exploit and plunder abroad but that's the extent of our mutual interest. And its wrong, still. You think the west wants peace? The west wants what its 1% want. They want resources, they want people to consume, they want entire countries under debt-slavery, they want Geo-strategic power, they are playing realpolitic or power politics. It follows the primal rule of nature that the weak are meat and the strong do eat. There is not higher authority than the state. meaning **** the UN, that's a facade. America was based on freedoms and human rights and to keep people passive to reality, the elites have to proclaim what they do is spreading freedom. It would be easier if we were under Nazi style empire where at least its clear they are doing what they do for themselves. Here instead we got fricken illusions of upholding morality and some notion of human rights combined with promises of prosperity.

**** man this is what I see in university. I go to psci class and they try to make us come to terms about how important democracy and voting are. Then they teach us that its not that bad that 50% of population doesn't vote because it doesn't necessarily mean that democracy isn't working and there are benefits to 50% not voting such as being itself a sign that change isn't necessary because everything is going smoothly. Just to give you a taste of insanity future "educated" people are subjected to and never question.
Where the hell are people going to learn about this world now? movies? mass media? schools?. Its insanity, go to university pay higher and higher tuition just to be taught all the different "sides" and then let us in a world surrounded by media and Hollywood choose the right "side". Oh the amount of realists being manufactured in our schools. Oh the future warriors of intellectual slavery is well established. Right now I have to critique Fukuyama's western hubris in claiming the end of history due to the western idea. There is no longer an aware educated middle class that keeps democracy working. No we got a middle class with expectations of wealth and so they pay for a piece of paper and care more about getting it than earning it. They then go to party's and get smashed smoke weed and listen to top 40 music that has lyrics about being rich, sexy and other bourgeoisie crap. The next day they wake up and act all so concerned about things in the mass media and ask questions about the issue under the same box or framework the media has already outlined. Yay for thinking outside the box.

So lets be real. We as a global class of average workers do not want Ukraine to be another American puppet. We do not want Ukraine to take IMF money. The path towards economic growth is not singular and does not have to be austerity. To counteract the 1% who control foreign policy of the west we must try to preserve a balance of power, which means allying with Putin.

As for president of Ukraine, well he has agreed to new elections, yes dozens of protestors and police are dead but what is there more to be said. I don't get the big deal the media is selling people. If Canada decided to opt out of NAFTA and we decided to shut down and trash Toronto for months, while us protesters and opposition leaders finally negotiate some deal, only to have some protestors now become rioters and not honor that deal....no shit the police and people are going to fight and kill each other. What do you think would happen if police just left the protestors or left the city. Say the ministry of health was occupied and shutdown.

who gives a **** what you want for ukraine? you want ukraine to be a russian puppet state. you just told people in your first post to follow russia today as a source of information, who have been slammed by most credible world news organizations (reuters, AFP, even aljezeera) for delivering one sided news.

The fact of the matter is this. Ukraine is, or pretends to be a democary. In a democracy, people have the right to free speech, to free assembly. Elements in ukraine exercised that right. the government then countered by seizing dictatorial powers, and authorizing violent reprisals against protesters. when this happened, various extremist groups joined in the fight and militarized the conflict. not one shot was fired by the protesters before yanukovich changed the constitution. if steven harper tried to seize dictatorial powers, we'd stand up and fight. and if you wouldn't, you're a ****ing pussy. you are still talking like the violence started on the protester side because of politics, which means you aren't at all aware of what has happened in ukraine in the past month. i really dont care to discuss this with you any further, your bias and naivete are so blatant that they. how you are studying polisci confounds me, there's no way you have the reasoning and investigative skills to have completed a polisci program. (hba utsg polisci '09)

here's another great article about ukrainian stereotypes from yesterdays washington post:

Ukrainian smears and stereotypes

By Anne Applebaum, Published: February 20 E-mail the writer
For those who are new to the subject — indeed, for those who have been following it for many years — the Ukrainian crisis can seem murky. The Ukrainians have a president, Viktor Yanukovych, who granted himself dictatorial powers and then repealed some of them; announced a truce and then broke it; claims to enforce the law but employs thugs who haul journalists out of cars and shoot them. The Ukrainian opposition, meanwhile, has three separate leaders who may or may not actually control the Ukrainian protest movement at any given moment.

The opacity helps to explain why Ukraine, after years of stability, has suddenly become violent and unpredictable. It also helps to explain why so many inside and outside the country use historical cliches to describe the situation. Often, those cliches are intended to serve the interests of those who use them. Sometimes they are just bad simplifications. Either way, what follows is a handy guide to the terms, words and phrases to treat with deep skepticism:

Fraternal assistance — This is a Soviet expression, once used to justify the Soviet invasions of Prague in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1979. “Fraternal assistance” was intended to prevent Soviet puppet states from being overthrown, whether violently or peacefully. In December, Russian President Vladimir Putin called Ukraine a “fraternal” country, hinting that he sees it as a puppet state. This week, a senior Russian parliamentarian declared that he and his colleagues are “prepared to give all the necessary assistance should the fraternal Ukrainian people ask for it.” This may well be the cue for pro-Russian organizations inside Ukraine to ask for intervention.

Anti-terrorist operation — This is a Putin-era expression, used to justify the Russian invasion of Chechnya in 1999. An “anti-terrorist operation,” in this particular context, means that anything is permitted: The term granted Russian soldiers carte blanche to destroy Grozny, the Chechen capital. This is why so many reacted with horror earlier this week when the Ukrainian defense ministry warned that the army “might be used in anti-terrorist operations on the territory of Ukraine.”

Coup d’etat — This more universal expression has been used since November by both the Ukrainian government and Russian commentators to describe street protests in Kiev and elsewhere. It can mean anything from “peaceful protests that we don’t like” to “protesters using violence against police,” but either way, it is a term being used to justify the deployment of an “anti-terrorist operation,” and not necessarily to describe an actual coup d’etat.

Nazi or fascist — These loaded historical terms have been used by both Russian and Ukrainian officials for many months to describe a wide range of opposition leaders and groups. Fake photographs of nonexistent Hitler posters in Kiev have been circulating online; recently the Russian foreign minister lectured his German colleagues for, he said, supporting people who salute Hitler. Of course there is a Ukrainian far right, though it is much smaller than the far right in France, Austria or Holland, and its members have indeed become more violent under the pressure of police clubs, bullets and attacks.

At the same time, those who throw these terms around should remember that the strongest anti-Semitic, homophobic and xenophobic rhetoric in this region is not coming from the Ukrainian far right but from the Russian press, and ultimately the Russian regime. As historian Tim Snyder has written, “the Ukrainian government is telling itself that its opponents are Jews and us that its opponents are Nazis.” The smears stick. Romano Prodi, the former president of the European Commission, just wrote an otherwise anodyne article ticking off Ukrainian “far-right nationalist groups” as if they were the main problem, proving that even Western statesmen aren’t immune.

Ethno-linguistic divisions or Yugoslav situation — These are more loaded terms, used in both the West and Russia to show that the conflict in Ukraine is atavistic, inexplicable, born of deep ethnic hatred. In fact, this is not an ethnic conflict at all. It is a political conflict and — despite the current opacity — at base not that hard to understand. It pits Ukrainians (both Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking) who want to live in a “European” democracy with human rights and the rule of law, against Ukrainians (also both Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking) — who support an undemocratic, oligarchic capitalist regime that is politically and economically dependent on Russia. Some of the regime’s supporters may well believe they are fighting fascists and militant European homosexuals; others may simply fear that deep reforms will cost them their paychecks.

Either way, this is not a fight over which language to speak or which church to attend. It is a deep, fundamental disagreement about the nature of the state, the country’s international allegiances, its legal system, its economy, its future. Given how much Ukrainians have at stake, the least we outsiders can do is avoid foolish stereotypes when discussing their fate.

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I run a canadian led kit & hid kit company, if you have any questions about led headlights or hid kits in canada or would like to check out our products please contact me here: http://absolutehid.ca2002 TiAg M3 6mt deoranged, dechromed, led tails, ZHP knob, UUC SS v3, GROM, OEM 220M 19's, Michelin Supersports
2006 YZF-R6, bunch of go-fast stuff

Not my intention to take the focus off Ukraine, I think it's very important we observe the situation and how Putin, Yanukovich, the EU, and Obama react to protest or negotiations.

I believe something similar could happen in North America as US presidents seem to progress into dictatorial leaders and the two party system is a scam. US government buildings are being fortified, huge ammunition stockpiles, FEMA camps everywhere, military training for "domestic terrorism", ever increasing surveillance on US/Canadian citizens, even Trudeau want's a buy-back or registry of rifles and shotguns. This is in preparation for something big! Just look at what happened here during the G20 in Toronto when extremists joined in with the peaceful protestors, for anyone living downtown it was more or less a police state.

I agree with you ryan. Guns aren't really the issue though (gun ownership by citizens in ukraine is very low when compared to canada). The real issue is that there seems to be no avenue for real change in democratic countries anymore. What leader, movement or party of a major power has precipiated real, lasting change? the american two party system is a joke. the differences between the republican and democratic parties are largely insignificant. lobbyists in washington are dead set on preserving the status quo, and have limitless resources to do so. this is why i'm proud of my countrymen in ukraine, because they are willing to stand up, put themselves in harms way, and even die for the prospect of change.

like i've said before, the socio-political landscape in ukraine is unbelievably complicated. the people who have been protesting for the past months come from a wide variety of backgrounds and have very differing goals. even now, one of the most radical nationalist groups in ukraine called pravij sektor is threating personally attacking yanukovich if he doesn't resign by 10am tomorrow morning kiev time. this is something the average protester in ukraine does not and would not support. but that's the beauty of what's happening in ukraine. people are willing to stand together, if not for what they know is right, then against that which they know is wrong. it is even more impressive that this is happening in ukraine, a largely plutocratic state since its second independence, in which every revolution, most recently yuschenko's orange revolution, has been a tremendous failure in unseating the political and economic elite.

it would be ideal if the opposition had a unified voice in ukraine. an entity that could steer the opposition towards populism, away from extremism, and understand the implications of their actions. if pravij sektor does attack tomorrow, this will do nothing to help unseat the executive, and will only give the federal government a perceived excuse to further persecute protesters. but the realities of current politics in ukraine dont allow themselves to organized opposition, particularly when threatened with violent repression. people stand up and fight arm in arm with others they ideologically disagree with, provided theyre is a common goal. (trivial anecdote: pravij sector is essentially a militant national socialist group, but they have been fighting arm in arm with sotnya, a militant jewish-ukrainian militia. normally these two groups would be fighting each other, but they have found a common enemy, at least for the time being).

__________________
I run a canadian led kit & hid kit company, if you have any questions about led headlights or hid kits in canada or would like to check out our products please contact me here: http://absolutehid.ca2002 TiAg M3 6mt deoranged, dechromed, led tails, ZHP knob, UUC SS v3, GROM, OEM 220M 19's, Michelin Supersports
2006 YZF-R6, bunch of go-fast stuff

the parliment of ukraine has just impeached yanukovich in a vote of 328 to 0

__________________
I run a canadian led kit & hid kit company, if you have any questions about led headlights or hid kits in canada or would like to check out our products please contact me here: http://absolutehid.ca2002 TiAg M3 6mt deoranged, dechromed, led tails, ZHP knob, UUC SS v3, GROM, OEM 220M 19's, Michelin Supersports
2006 YZF-R6, bunch of go-fast stuff

get over yourself with your retarded bullshit. the USA did not cause a revolution in ukraine, yanukovich did. the people rose up, and now he's on the run.

yulia is a crook just like every other politician in ukraine, but she was put in jail for political and not criminal reasons, and deserved to be freed.

__________________
I run a canadian led kit & hid kit company, if you have any questions about led headlights or hid kits in canada or would like to check out our products please contact me here: http://absolutehid.ca2002 TiAg M3 6mt deoranged, dechromed, led tails, ZHP knob, UUC SS v3, GROM, OEM 220M 19's, Michelin Supersports
2006 YZF-R6, bunch of go-fast stuff

The US never ever supported any opposition group in any of its enemy's countries it deems it has interests in. The US has no history of changing governments covertly or otherwise. History does not remember any Latin America country, nor middle eastern, nor African, nor Asian being at the influence of America in any economic or political levels. The CIA does not exist. What countries were not under influence by the US during this period we called the Cold War and why? Not relevant question why?

i'm not saying the us doesn't influence foreign politics. i know for a fact that the US does. (remember, i have a polisci degree?) the us isn't THAT interested in ukraine anyway. there's lots of aid coming, and they always seek influence in all regions, but it would be a stretch for the US to call ukraine a strategic ally. (maybe something to do with ukraine's neighbors to the south)

you have the right to your opinion. everyone in ukraine has the right to decide what they think is best. there is a huge % of russian speaking ukrainian, some of whom would be very happy if ukraine rejoined russia. (crimea, for instance, has no national history of being ukrainian. other regions were forcefully populated by russians durring the soviet period for the very reason of dispersing national identity.) as such, a different group have the right to seek westernization, or any other damn thing that they please. but again, like i said in my first post, what is happening in ukraine right now isn't one political position or another. its bigger than that.

i've seen that doc. great film.

awwwwww ****it, here's a great article by bonner (chief editor at the kiev post, a prominent and western leaning publication in ukraine)

In the end, Viktor Yanukovych simply cut and run, abandoning the presidency, his palatial Mezhyhyria palace and Ukraine.

He couldn’t be competent at anything, except greed, as the hordes of journalists spending the night at his former estate north of Kyiv are discovering. The journalists who are going through Yanukovych’s belongings there are dividing up into teams to go over recovered documents showing millions of dollars in various transactions. Divers are recovering papers that Yanukovych tried to burn and throw into the Kyiv Sea on the way out. He evidently left in a hurry overnight. He was reportedly stopped by the border service in Donetsk while trying to flee Ukraine in a chartered plane.

His ignominious departure triggered immediate flashbacks to the only time that I met Yanukovych face-to-face, when I spent an hour with him in his office.

The year was 1999. Yanukovych was the governor of Donetsk Oblast and Leonid Kuchma was running for re-election. I was observing the election there for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The conversation with Yanukovych wasn’t particularly memorable. He gave me more than an hour of his time, granting the interview after a front-page story appeared the day before in a local newspaper about my presence and the OSCE mission in Donetsk.

Yanukovych was polite, patient and informed about election preparations, but he looked down a lot across from the conference table, probably out of boredom.

The truly memorable part of that election, besides all the cheating, was my friendship with Dmitry Kornilov and the insight he gave me into Yanukovych and Donetsk.

Kornilov was a journalist with an independent newspaper that shut down during the election because its publisher knew that he would be expected to publish only pro-Kuchma articles. So Kornilov, a great student of politics and the Donbas, was available to work with me as a translator and guide. He amazed me as a person and with his vast knowledge. I also remember his private political opinion: “If Yanukovych ever got elected president, it would be the biggest disaster for Ukraine.” Kornilov, who tragically died too early in 2002 only in his 30s, was prophetic.

As president during Ukraine’s three-month-old crisis, Yanukovych vacillated between whether he would be a bloody dictator or a democratic leader. He did a little of both, but neither effectively.

Finally, his allies in parliament, law enforcement and security started seeing what millions, including Kornilov, had long before – that the emperor has no clothes. So, in his final days, they abandoned him, first in a trickle and then with a flood.

The Maidan – shorthand for the street public opinion that is now in charge of Ukraine – flatly rejected his latest attempt to hold onto power, even though the Feb. 21 deal had been blessed by politicians in America, the European Union and Ukraine. According to the plan, Yanukovych would get to time until a December 2014 election (only three months ahead of schedule). If that would have happened, he would have had more time to maneuver.

But he didn’t get that time. The Maidan spoke late on Feb. 21, giving Yanukovych until 10 a.m. on Feb. 22 to get out. And he did.

In the video Yanukovych released, Ukraine’s fourth president stood in front of a softly lit yellow curtain and spoke into a video camera, possibly in Kharkiv, the nation’s second largest city, or possibly not. The location was not clear from the video. A source at UBR television in Kyiv said that no journalists from the pro-government business channel conducted the interview. The video was simply sent to the station for release.

While Yanukovych talked about staying in Ukraine and not resigning as president, he didn’t sound very convincing. He whined about physical threats of violence against him and the people closest to him. He condemned lawlessness, an ironic condemnation considering that he did so much to create this lawlessness since he took power in 2010.

But the fear was in his eyes, as he probably had visions of Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu, Libya’s Moammar Quadaffi and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein dancing in his head. To give Yanukovych some credit, he did not kill his own people on the scale of Syria's Assad or Uzbekistan's Karimov. He also recognized a few political realities – Ukrainians wouldn't tolerate censorship or restrictions on their free movement.

There are reports that his ministers also fled, but some of them didn’t make it across the border, such as Viktor Pshonka, the former general prosecutor; Oleksandr Klymenko, the former deputy prime minister; and Vitaliy Zakharchenko, the former interior minister.They were reportedly blocked at the border. This suggests some quick action by those now in power.

Let’s hope that, finally, every crime committed by the Yanukovych administration – and those in power before him – gets investigated and properly adjudicated. Let’s hope that oligarchs who gained assets illegally will finally face justice. Let’s hope, however, that the desire for bloodlust is gone.

There is no reason yet for declaring victory in Ukraine. The next people in power could be worse. But Ukrainians – not politicians or diplomats or oligarchs or even journalists – have shown that they know how to get rid of regimes that push them too far and whose greed is unrestrained.

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I run a canadian led kit & hid kit company, if you have any questions about led headlights or hid kits in canada or would like to check out our products please contact me here: http://absolutehid.ca2002 TiAg M3 6mt deoranged, dechromed, led tails, ZHP knob, UUC SS v3, GROM, OEM 220M 19's, Michelin Supersports
2006 YZF-R6, bunch of go-fast stuff